Interpolation
by Disrupted Original
Summary: A series of small one-shots, ranging from paragraphs to pages long, each one based on a certain theme. Gordon and Alyx-centric, for the most part. Okay, maybe some Grigori. Violence and language -- this is Half-Life, after all.
1. 001 to 005

_Disclaimer: I don't own Half-Life._

* * *

**001. Disease**

Zombies were milling around all over beneath them. Headcrabs screeched and hopped, futilely attempting to reach them on their perch far above in the warehouse. Gordon sat cross-legged, carefully reloading a clip into his pistol, green eyes flicking over the shambling forms below them. Next to him, Alyx sat with one knee tucked up under an arm, drinking sparingly from their canteen.

"We should probably head out sometime soon," she murmured, catching his slight nod out of the corner of her eye.

Craning her neck, she could see the pale yellow outline of their car. The hazard lights flickered on and off.

"Battery's gonna run out if we leave it sitting there."

Gordon frowned slightly, following her gaze.

Somewhere down below, a zombie bellowed in fury, raking its claws against the wall below them. With a grimace of irritation, Gordon lowered his pistol and blew its headcrab off with a few well-aimed shots. The remainders of the horde didn't seem to mind that their comrade had fallen.

"Less mouths to feed," Gordon muttered, watching them stumble over the crumpled body. Slowly, he got to his feet, turning to Alyx.

She let out a deep breath. "You ready?"

* * *

**002. Bathroom**

"So how do _you_ do it?" Alyx asked, returning from behind the bush.

Gordon blinked. "What?"

She leaned against a nearby tree, smirk on her face. "You know what I'm talking about."

"Um..." -by God, he looked a little _flustered!- _"there's a..."

He gestured vaguely at the area below his waist.

"...Hatch," he finally managed to say.

Alyx leaned in closer to him. "Are you _blushing_?"

Gordon turned his head, pointedly not looking at her. "I'm gonna go get the car," he said, quietly.

* * *

**003. Delirious  
**

Gordon lifted his new (and now highly-favored) shotgun, blasting away at a pair of zombies that groaned as they shuffled towards him. His companion-- the priest-- was nearby, also firing away with a shotgun, only with a better aim and a chestful of laughter. Pausing to reload, Gordon gave the odd man a wary glance. The laughter made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He wasn't a man who trusted others even before the Black Mesa incident, and surely wasn't one of those now. What if this seemingly crazy- hell, downright terrifying- person was leading him right into the maw of the Combine?

No time to think about that, Gordon thought to himself, as a new group of damned souls shuffled into view of his flashlight.

There was a slight chittering noise from behind him, quickly drowned out by the bark of the shotgun. He threw a cursory glance behind him-- nothing. Grigori was further ahead now, plowing through the zombies while shouting some quote from the Bible.

Gordon's ears pricked at a strange sound that he'd not heard before. It was sort of like a shriek, or a bird-

Something sharp and painful punctured the back of his neck, and instinctively, he twisted around, finger already pulling on the shotgun's trigger.

The unfamiliar noise stopped as soon as he'd fired. Blinking slowly, he realized that he'd killed _something_. It looked like a headcrab, but it was black, and hairy.

He was able to raise a hand up to the wound on the back of his neck, and think, _I've never seen a black headcrab_, before a rush of dizziness overthrew his senses, and darkness claimed him.

---

Gordon awoke with a groan, pushing himself into the land of the conscious as quickly as he could. Immediately, he tried to pull himself up from the prone position he'd found himself in. His head swam, and his entire body felt like it was on fire. Above him, he saw the still-dark sky.

A voice drifted through the foggy haze that was his world.

"Be still, brother. You should be dead by now."

"What happened?" Gordon tried to say, but all that came out of his throat was a gasping moan.

"This must have been your first encounter with the poison ones."

_Poison what?_ Confusion bogged down his already sluggish thoughts. _Something poisoned me?_

There was a cool hand on his forehead, and he leaned into it, realizing that his breath had degraded to shallow panting.

"I say, _be still_. There will be lasting effects if you do not allow your body to heal."

Gordon realized that the HEV suit was whispering in his ear-- something about neurotoxins and medical attention.

His vision began to clear a little, and he saw Grigori hunched over next to him, holding something small and thin in one hand.

"What... what is-" his tongue felt like a five-pound weight wrapped in cotton.

"You are lucky I have stock of the antitoxin on hand, or you would be dead by now." Grigori showed him the object- an empty hypodermic needle. "It will be a few hours before you will be able to walk again. Sleep now, my brother."

And so, he slept- to the lullaby of muffled shotgun fire and a Savior's laughter.

* * *

**004. Autumn**

There wasn't much of a difference between the seasons in City 17, save that it snowed for a few months and was warm for a few later on. There wasn't a way to tell the difference between days. The Combine kept a calender of their own, all numbers and hyphens.

It didn't mean Alyx didn't grow up without holidays to look forward to. There was Thanksgiving, which they celebrated on the day of the first snow. There was Christmas, which took place at the first spotting of a blooming flower.

Alyx knew that it was spring when Christmas finally came around. When the days got warmer and heat radiated from Dog's shoulders, she knew it was summer. Winter, of course, happened when it snowed.

Autumn was the season most dear to her heart. She enjoyed the colors that the trees turned before shaking off their leaves. Days got shorter and the nights got colder. The world turned, and autumn reminded her that while all other things ended, the days continued on and on. Forever.

* * *

**005. River**

"Holy-- this water is _cold_," Alyx hissed as she felt the biting chill dig into the skin around her ankles. Gordon was a few paces in front of her. Using the Gravity Gun, he was clearing away a pile of logs that had gathered along the riverbed, blocking their path to White Forest. As quickly as she could manage, Alyx scrambled out of the water and onto a nearby rock, stomping her feet a little to ward off the intense chill.

Gordon did not seem phased at all and simply continued his task, patiently moving the logs one by one instead of punting them all into dozens of random positions. A ways behind them sat the car, rumbling softly.

Frowning, Alyx sat down on the rock and took her shoes off, shaking the rather large amount of dirt and pebbles that had gathered in them along her travels. Keeping a close eye on her surroundings, she then wrung the water out of her socks.

"Ready?" Gordon asked softly, turning towards her.

Alyx stared. "Done already?"

"The car'll get over the small stuff."

They looked at each other. For the first time, Gordon seemed to realize that her feet were bare. He blinked at them, obviously confused, before making his way over to her.

"Hypothermia," Alyx pointed out sagely, "starts in the outer extremeties."

"I thought that was frostbite."

"Maybe. Let me hitch a ride, would you?"

So, Gordon ended up piggybacking Alyx to the car, her shoes and socks held in one hand and Gravity Gun in the other.

He didn't seem to mind much.

* * *

_(A/N: I have always liked writing little stories, small glimpses of another life. I'll be releasing these little 'ficlets' in groups of five, unless I have an exceptionally long one (re: over 1000 words). Hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. Let me know what you think.)_

_(EDIT: Apparently FF.n doesn't like it when I simply want a double-space between one ficlet and the other, so I've placed little rulers. Hope they aren't too irritating.)_


	2. 006 to 010

**006. Sunset**

Fiery reds and purples streaked across the orange sky, cloudy fingers reaching down to scoop up the darkening horizon. Gordon sat in the airboat, silently watching. Far away, he could hear the thumping of the Combine gunship, still pursuing him. It would be upon him soon, he knew.

Chewing quietly on the freeze-dried rations that the Underground railroad had provided him, he leaned against the handlebars, listening to the slight breeze playing through a crop of cattails. Somewhere he could hear a bird singing to itself.

The sound of the gunship drew closer.

Gordon finished his rations and leaned back in the seat, blinking up at the multicolored clouds. His gaze landed on the looming form of the Citadel, stretching upwards so far he couldn't see the top. It was a dull grey compared to the clouds and sky- like comparing the brightness of a firefly to the hues of a crystal's prism.

Finally, he heard the gunship crest the outside of the drained lake he was sitting in, squealing loudly as it spotted him.

Sighing, he revved the engine of the airboat, and went to meet it.

* * *

**007. Relief**

Hands sweating, Alyx gripped the sniper rifle and kept a keen eye on the depot beneath her, seeking the colors of orange and grey. It was too difficult to judge where Gordon could be by sound alone- everything echoed and seemed like it was coming from everywhere. She heard the sounds of a pulse rifle chewing away at something, doors opening, splintering wood.

Twenty minutes.

That's how much time had passed since she'd last seen him, trotting easily down a flight of stairs to disappear into another doorway.

Alyx swallowed hard. The vortigaunt behind her was silent, perhaps sharing her anxiety.

It was quiet, now. Straining her ears to listen for even the slightest sound, Alyx leaned forward, swiping the sight of the rifle crazily over the area beyond, eagerly seeking Gordon out.

Somewhere, a zombie shrieked, but she did not hear the discharge of Gordon's shotgun (his favorite) or the thundering of the pulse rifle (his second favorite).

"Where are you...?" she whispered into the air, willing him to appear.

Twenty-five minutes. Alyx hadn't even heard him for half of that time.

He was normally pretty quiet anyway, but he would have at least shouted _something_ if he'd been badly wounded.

Alyx swallowed again, mind turning. Maybe a barnacle had gotten a hold of him, snapped his neck before he could do anything... no. Gordon wasn't dumb enough to keep himself open to those. A zombie would have made noises. Wild visions flitted through her mind, each one dismissed as quickly as the next. Gordon with a headcrab on his face. A poison headcrab biting him and his HEV suit failing, leaving him convulsing, dying. Gordon, dead.

"Come on, come on," she hissed.

Finally, _finally_, she heard something metal striking metal, and Gordon stumbled into sight, covered in dust, crowbar in one hand and shotgun in the other.

"_There_ you are!" Alyx hollered, and he blinked up at her, waving the crowbar slightly. "Don't do that again," she whispered, although there was no way he could have heard her.

* * *

**008. Silence**

Something exploded a few feet behind Gordon, and he felt the hot sting of what was probably shrapnel bite his left ear. His hearing went out like an overused lightbulb, leaving only a low ringing sound. Raising his gun defensively, he became forced to use his eyes alone to find his enemies-- and his vision had never been good in the first place.

* * *

**009. Night**

Alyx stared up at the broken sky, content to listen to Gordon's quiet breathing as he slept next to her, jammed up uncomfortably in the passenger seat of the car. He didn't seem to mind much, since he'd been sleeping in this position for well over two hours now. His crowbar was still within easy reach, and he was a light enough sleeper now that even the tiniest noise of an approaching headcrab would send him into attack mode. So Alyx kept as silent as possible, and willed the scenery around her to do the same.

She turned her head and stared at him. All of the pain and frustration and worry that was evident on his face seemed to melt away when he slept. To be honest, he looked a lot younger without his glasses on, which she held onto loosely in her lap. They were a little bent on one side, which had probably occurred during the train crash. She fiddled with them a little, cleaned them up with the edge of her shirt.

A slight wind picked up in the trees, its chill sending a shiver down her back. Gordon just curled closer into himself, his suit obviously doing most of its job of regulating his temperature. Alyx lifted her gaze from the glasses to look at Gordon again.

Shuddering, she allowed a sigh to escape her lungs.

Turning her gaze back up to the sky, she placed the glasses on the dashboard and folded her hands under her head, deciding to give him a few more hours-- just before dawn-- before heading out again.

* * *

**010. Cry**

The sound of sobbing hailed him the same way a faraway train would, or a zombie in the dark. His reaction was the same-- alert, tense. At least in battle, he knew what to do. The goal was simple: walk away alive and in mostly one piece. This was a whole new realm to Gordon, who had never experienced the pain of watching a beloved family member die right in front of him.

No, his parents had most likely been killed during the resonance cascade twenty years ago. The pain of their deaths had already passed and become a freshly-healed scar.

He heard it again, echoing through the bare hallways of the base. It was Alyx, still grieving.

Two days had passed. He hadn't slept once, instead wandering through the base, occupying his mind with menial tasks. Anything to distract himself.

Here, on the way to find his car and scout around for Combine, he ran into Alyx, slumped on a crate. Her headband and clip had been pulled from her hair, leaving it a wild mess around her heart-shaped face.

Gordon slowed to a halt, unsure. Like a deer standing in the headlights of an oncoming van, frozen in time.

Alyx glanced up at him. She attempted a smile, failed, and looked away, twisting her headband around in her hands.

"I'm..." he swallowed, "I'm sorry." He'd said it at least twenty times so far.

"I know," she answered, voice almost too soft to be heard.

He stepped a little closer, sitting down on the crate next to her.

"Alyx," he started.

She threw her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder, and he stroked her hair, both of them unable to do anything else.

_(A/N: Sleeping!Gordon is cute.)_


	3. 011 to 015

**011. Fair**

Gordon wasn't sure if he knew the meaning of fairness. Things never seemed to balance themselves out for him. Sure, he'd fought alot of aliens and zombies just to survive, and that was expected with the way the world was now.

But now?

The scout car had broken down-- the engine was shot, or out of gasoline. He had managed to slow it to a stop near a pillar of stone thrusting up from the sand. Gordon was able to climb to the top, and there he now perched, watching the antlions mill around, hissing and clicking.

This was _not_ fair.

Gordon chewed his tongue as the angry thought passed through his mind for the hundredth time. He held his shotgun close, picking off the antlions that strayed too close to him. His stomach was starting to growl, and the sun was beginning to slip over the watery horizon.

Below him, the antlions were starting to chew at the wheels of his scout car. Gordon fired a few rounds from the shotgun to scatter them off, careful not to strike the vehicle. He rubbed at his eyes behind his glasses, wondering again if he could reach the faraway house standing in the mist before the antlions tore him apart. Probably not.

He wasn't sure what he was waiting for anymore. At first he had hoped that the antlions would become tired of waiting for him to come down and move off. Instead, they had set up a veritable camp all around his perch. Before, they had attempted to jump up and knock him down, but over a dozen had failed and were now lying dead amongst their cohorts. They seemed to understand that trying to jump at his face wouldn't work, and now just waited, patiently.

A pair just below and to the right of him were either fighting or mating. He couldn't tell.

A crack of thunder overhead made Gordon jerk viciously in fear. He looked up just in time for a fat drop of rain to fall on his cheek.

Totally _not_ fair.

* * *

**012. Allergy**

"Here, Dr. Freeman."

Gordon glanced over to see one of the rebels in his company leaning over to hand him something. They were stuck down deep, beneath a collapsed highway, waiting for the signal to move on.

Blinking, the physicist took a closer look. It was a health bar. Gordon grabbed it and gave a cursory view of the label, and then handed it back.

"No thank you. I'm allergic."

The rebel held the health bar in both hands, scrutinizing the ingredients. "To corn syrup?"

"Peanuts."

But the well-meaning youth persisted. "You know, this might be the last thing you'll get to eat for a long, long time."

Gordon gave him a wary look. "I'm _allergic_," he repeated, as if putting the words in a different tone would stick this time around.

Apparently the plan backfired. "But you're going to be hungry."

"I'll _die_ if I eat that."

"Oh, _oh!_ So our food isn't good enough for you, then?"

Gordon wanted to give the rebel a whack with the back of his pistol. He obviously wasn't the brightest bulb in the box.

Thankfully, the sight of a flare curving through the sky broke off any further arguments about the health bar, and they were off again.

* * *

**013. Death**

When Gordon had taken up smoking cigarettes at the age of nineteen, he remembered his father telling him he would die an early death. Two months later, he quit, disgusted with the taste and uninterested in the scene provided by the smokers on his college campus.

Now he was twenty-seven, which was still too early for any death-- yet here it was, staring him straight in the face.

The warmth of blood running down his back distracted him from how cold it was. A few gunshots had made their mark, as well as a half-dozen manhacks that had ambushed him in this underground hell.

Slumping in the stagnant water of the disused sewer, Gordon watched with vague interest as his blood created strange ribbonlike designs in the clear fluid. The HEV suit was talking into his ear, calm voice telling him that he was likely about to die.

A zombie was muttering somewhere, drawing his attention away from the abstract shapes painted beneath him.

Rocking uneasily to his feet, he took up his shotgun, heavy in his cold hands.

The gunshots echoed loudly around the enclosed stone space, but all Gordon could hear was his father, speaking to him over a Seattle rainstorm.

* * *

**014. Table**

It was made of the kind of cheap particleboard that you would find if you tore the wallpaper off of a trailer wall. Two of the legs were too short, causing it to wobble uncontrollably with as little as a glass of water placed on it. Some sort of lacquer had been painted on it to stop the wood from warping, and it was now cracking, turning yellow, falling apart in some places.

All of these things went unnoticed as Gordon crouched down behind the overturned table, loading his pistol. Gunshots splintered along the uneven surface, but did not break through.

Pulling a grenade from his side, Gordon lobbed it over. It was enough to distract the CP units as he peered over the edge of the wood, taking them out with his gun in the confusion. Trash and dust flew through the air as the grenade exploded, also taking out a sizable chunk from the opposite wall.

Afterward, Gordon picked up the furniture with his Gravity Gun and used it to kill a few more of the soldiers before it finally gave out, splintered, and fell apart.

* * *

**015. Early**

Dawn had just started to peer over the horizon when Alyx decided to wake Gordon from slumber. Leaning over, she gently shook his shoulder. Instead of awakening violently, like he had a tendency to do, he simply stretched unconsciously and blinked open his eyes.

"Morning," Alyx whispered. "Ready to go?"

He curled up closer into himself on the passenger seat-- although how that was even possible Alyx couldn't tell-- and screwed his eyes shut.

"Still tired," he murmured.

"It's still early, yet. We need to head off."

"Yeah."

A few moments passed where she thought he'd fallen back asleep, but then he carefully untangled his arms and legs from each other, got out of the car, and wandered behind a close-knit copse of trees.

He returned a few minutes later, a bit more awake this time, and slightly embarrassed to find he'd forgotten his crowbar in the car.

Alyx traded places with him and they set off again, Gordon reminding himself to take the first watch next time.

* * *

_(A/N: Sorry that my updates are taking so long. Gordon seems like the kind of guy who'd have the luck to be allergic to peanuts. Also, 015 is a bit of a follow-up to 009, if you'd like to know.)_


	4. 016 to 019

**016. Criminal**

The alleyway stank of rotten food and moldy papers. A large section of sheet metal had been erected up in one corner, and another perpendicular to that, so there was cover from all but one side.

Gordon ran a finger over the faded lambda symbol here, knowing that this was a place of refuge, though it was empty now.

He could still hear the Combine dispatcher, its feminine yet hollow voice echoing over the rooftops above him.

The whole situation reminded him of cop movies, where the convict would flee into an alley, then wait for an officer to stumble upon him. Unfortunately, the convicts always seemed to lose in those movies.

Footsteps echoed down the brick walls, dragging him from his thoughts. Shadows fell across the debris-strewn ground. Beneath the sheet metal, Gordon waited, pistol in one hand and crowbar in the other.

The mangled voices of CP units drifted to his ears.

They came closer, and Gordon awaited them.

* * *

**017. Play**

Gordon stared at the pattern of black and red below him, tapping a finger pensively on his knee as he thought over his next move. His eyes flicked sharply around for a moment before he carefully leaned forward and reached out a hand. He picked up the disc of plastic carefully with his thumb and forefinger, handling it as if it were nitroglycerin.

Letting out a breath, he placed it into position, already seeing his fate rushing at him like an oncoming freight train.

Across from him, Dog tilted his head, made a small _bloop_ sound, and moved his own checkers piece, overtaking Gordon's last three pieces.

The physicist growled and threw his hands in the air. Alyx, who had been watching from the corner of her eye from across the room, laughed.

"I told you, you're never going to beat him. He's a _robot,_ Gordon."

"Have _you_ ever beaten him?"

"I have the good sense not to play chess with a robot."

Gordon scowled and leaned back in the chair. "Checkers," he muttered.

Alyx's smile split into a grin. "You fell back to _checkers_?"

Rolling his eyes, Gordon stood up and left the room in irritation. Dog _hoo_ed and began to gather up the pieces.

"I _told_ you to go easy on him."

* * *

**018. Numbered**

_Five, four, three..._

There: a lull in the gunfire.

_Four, five, six. Rack a shell. Pull the trigger._

They were relentless, the Combine, and the heavy _thukthukthukthukthuk_ of their pulse rifles had become commonplace.

Once, he had been used to the sounds of cars and rain.

Then, the humming of machinery and the rumbling of electric trams.

Now, gunfire and garbled radio static.

_Five, four, three. Around the corner- big guy. Close. Both barrels, this time._

_One._

Gordon leaned back against the inside of the boxcar.

A Manhack came shrieking inside, right at his face.

_Zero._

He knelt down and pushed the shells into the magazine.

The numbers he kept always at the front of his mind, his own constant, his own comfort.

_Six._

It was really all he had.

* * *

**019. Fun**

The sounds of laughter echoed through the halls of the base, sourced from the large warehouse where the helicopter was being kept. Pale sunlight brushed against the stained brown windows, casting bizarre shadows across the oil-stained floor. The helicopter sat stoically off to one side, rotors detached, blades set up against a wall.

Another burst of laughter bounced through the warehouse, feminine, nearly a giggle.

"Gordon! You're going to-"

Which dissolved back into laughter again.

There was a hill behind the warehouse where Dog sat, peering out with his single aperture at the woodlands beyond. The giggles from inside at initially put his sensors on the alert, his internal computer convinced it were a threat. Then, as his memory shuffled through all of the audio he'd heard throughout his long life, it came to know it as harmless laughter. He let out a small _woo_ and stretched forward, watching and cataloging the rebels walking throughout the base, the way the wind was blowing, the birds in the nearby trees.

There was a short, rough bark of laughter that was immediately recognized as male.

"Alyx, I-"

"Don't you think-"

And quiet.

Dog tilted his head and looked back toward the warehouse, the sound of his aperture zooming in and out being the only sound registering in his audio receptors. He knew silence was good but could also be bad. The quiet of a sleeping base? That was good. Sudden quiet from the warehouse that he knew Alyx was in? That was bad.

Turning, he loped down the hill towards the warehouse.

He was halfway there when voices started back up again.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I-"

And then, they were laughing again.

Dog lowered his head fractionally and went back to his spot on the hill.

* * *

_(A/N: I've replaced 018 with something I like a bit more than the last. Unfortunately that makes this chapter a wee bit short. Sorry about that. I hope you enjoy anyway.)_


	5. 020 to 024

_Disclaimer: (C) Valve._

_

* * *

_

**020. Full**

They sat together on the old red couch in Kleiner's computer room, Gordon with a mug of watered-down coffee and Alyx sipping at her own cup of hot tea. It was early, too early to really do anything. Outside, it was still dark, but the artificial light inside the base made up for that.

The old monitors on the wall next to them flickered and sputtered with static and plain white boxes, each screen blinking its own abstract tune.

"This tea is horrible," Alyx commented, mostly just to fill up the silence in the room.

"Yeah," Gordon agreed.

"How's the coffee?"

He shrugged indifferently, glancing into the weathered cup. To be honest, the coffee tasted a little like stagnant pond water. It sure beat murky river water underneath a jerry-rigged airboat, though.

They were both smiling, although Gordon's was more subdued, Alyx's far more prominent.

A low rumble caught their ears. For a moment Gordon thought it was something happening in the missile silo, until he realized it was actually his stomach. He rubbed it ruefully.

"Hungry?" Alyx asked, a laugh hiding behind her voice.

"I guess I am."

"Let's go get something, then."

Gordon just smiled softly and followed her out.

* * *

**021. Pack**

Gordon turned the medkit over and over in his hands, watching the green liquid inside of it swish around. There was a dark scuff mark on the backside, but he wasn't sure how it had gotten there. He thought he remembered picking it up outside of the Lighthouse point, before having to deal with all the temperamental antlions in the sand.

He rubbed his thumb a little over the blemish, then set it aside to work on digging the bullet out of the left leg of his HEV suit.

* * *

**022. Taste**

The cart squealed above him. It felt and sounded like it was going to fall apart any second. Gordon gripped his new shotgun tightly, blinking down at the street below him. For a while, he'd had a problem with heights. Well, up until a few days ago, when he'd ended up poking his way through an entire underground research center. There were a lot of high places in Black Mesa, funnily enough since it was below the surface of the earth.

No, he doubted he'd ever be as high up as he was when he'd first stumbled out into the sunlight at Black Mesa, where the river below (which he knew was rather large) looked like a hairline fracture on the curve of the earth.

This he could handle.

The cart shuddered to a stop, rocking uncomfortably from side to side. Gratefully, he climbed out of it and onto the ramshackle wooden platform, glad to be back on solid ground.

Grigori met him as he descended the ladder to the dry grass below.

"Hey," Gordon said, lowering his shotgun.

"Greetings, brother," the priest began, and Gordon casually looked him up and down. "You must be commended for avoiding my traps. It is good to finally meet you in person."

The physicist stuck out one hand for Grigori to shake, but the man went on about his 'congregation,' and after a long pause Gordon awkwardly returned his hand to the pump of his shotgun.

"You've made quite a journey, my friend. How came you to this forsaken place?"

"City 17," Gordon told him. "I'm heading there."

Recognition alit in the priest's eyes, and he gave a slight nod of approval. "I see. The quickest way is through the mines. Shall I show you there?"

Gordon nodded, then realized that he hadn't even given the man his name. "I'm-"

His words were quickly drowned out by the bark of the priest's shotgun, expertly dispatching a headcrab that was climbing the chain-link fence behind them. Gordon whirled, honestly tired of his heart leaping about in fear and shock, although glad (and surprised) that he hadn't gone into cardiac arrest yet.

"Ah, I almost forgot," Grigori muttered, turning away from the fence while Gordon continued to stare at it. "I have a small gift for you. A reward for your... survival." He laughed, deep and echoing in the small area.

Gordon turned in time to recieve a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with what looked to be a shoelace.

"What is it?"

"Are you not hungry?" Grigori asked. "Sit. Sit, my child. Before we cross into that hallowed ground."

With an uncomfortable, awkward feeling, Gordon knelt down across from him, juggling the package and the shotgun.

They made quite an odd pair-- Grigori, covered in dust and muck and blood, eyes distant and cunning, and Gordon, clad in his scraped-up suit, bespectacled and gripping his shotgun as if it were required to breathe.

They shared the meal in silence, Gordon chewing cautiously as the taste of gristle and stale bread filled his mouth. Grigori just smiled slightly and motioned for him to eat more.

* * *

**023. Bleach**

Gordon had always loved the smell of it-- clean, almost sterile. In Black Mesa, they'd practically _rationed_ the stuff out, in tiny little bottles the size of shot-glasses that he had to pay out the nose for at the laundromat.

Now, he shook the faded bottle gently, listening to the contents swirl around. It was quite a find, but he'd scooped it up and taken it back with him to White Forest, along with a pile of munitions that he'd also salvaged from the old Combine tunnels. Of course, _he_ would never have the opportunity to use it, but perhaps someone could coax Kleiner out of his lab coat for a half-hour and put it to use.

Weeks later, he learned that the bleach had been used to do just that, however unintentionally, as it also threw a great odd-shaped white stain across Magnusson's grey-blue suit.

* * *

**024. String**

It was eerily silent on this side of the canal. Even the normally quiet steps made by the HEV seemed to shout in the small space. Gordon glanced back at the way he'd come, his vision partially blocked by an overturned truck. He hoped the Combine wouldn't see the airboat and come slinking down here after him.

Something caught his eye as he moved closer into what he could only assume was a flood canal. A bicycle, leaning carefully against a pole, apparently having lost its kick-stand somewhere.

Almost entranced, Gordon moved closer, holstering his pistol to run a gloved hand along the handlebars. Someone had obviously taken good care of this little bike-- there was barely a scratch on it. He looked back out the flood canal again, wondering how far someone would even be able to pedal it.

A small tinkling sound came to his ears, reminding him of shards of broken glass falling from very high. Looking up, he saw a crisscrossing mesh of boards that looked like it had been built recently and above that, a little windmill turning in the breeze.

Gordon didn't even hear the sound of footsteps behind him until sharp claws were raking loudly down his back, allowing him a startled yell as he whirled. Fumbling backwards, he raised his pistol at the headcrab zombie that had apparently crept up on him, firing six shots point blank where a person's head used to be. The headcrab came off but the body fell slack against the ground. Gordon, a little shocked and more than a little embarrassed, crossed the few more feet to the wounded headcrab and killed it with a final bullet.

Ignoring the voice of the HEV in his ear, he turned back and gave the canal a more thorough search, assuring himself that he wouldn't have any more visitors.

As he climbed up a rickety catwalk that had obviously been thrown together with scrap wood and metal, he found himself staring at a box of supplies. It sat alone, inviting and silent, and Gordon, animal-like, descended upon it with his crowbar. Out spilled a handful of medkits and a box of handgun ammunition, and the most welcoming, a pair of military rations sealed tightly in foil.

Gordon paused in gathering up his goodies when he saw, underneath one of the medkits, a twisted wire. Curious, he picked it up and saw that it was a little wind chime. A pair of tiny hollow pipes hung down from the wire, creating a soft sound when they knocked together. Gordon frowned; he must have knocked it down from somewhere in his haste to get the supply crate open.

Easing himself into a seating position, with his legs dangling from the catwalk, Gordon tore open one of the rations. He chewed on the freeze-dried stuff slowly, hoping that it would quell the suddenly sick feeling that was beginning to dwell in the pit of his stomach.

A small hook caught his eye, screwed into the wooden eye beam above him. Blinking, Gordon caught up the little wind chime and hung it carefully on the hook by its string. It rocked lazily in the breeze, tinkling like broken glass as the tiny pipes knocked together.

Gordon took another look around the flood canal, at the bike, the carefully crafted chime, the catwalks. Even in the relative comfort of the HEV, he shivered.

* * *

_(A/N: I know, I know, 'long time, no update.' Well, here I am again. I'm a little irritated with the Half-Life section of FFN, since every other story is some sort of 'Full-Life Consequences' thing. Really irks me. Ah well, I don't make the rules. Hope you enjoyed this installment.)_


	6. 025 to 030

_Disclaimer: Half-Life (c) to Valve._

* * *

**025. Flu**

The alleyway was covered in grime and dust, and she kicked a little of it up each time she moved. Behind her, she could hear the Combine officer approaching. Her breath was a fog of white in front of her face, completely unable to control her terrified panting. The gun in her hand was slippery. Her palms were sweating again.

Alyx blinked, her eyes watering although the dust had not clouded up into her face. Tilting her head left and right, she deducted the best way out of the alley. To her right was a dumpster standing next to a rotting wooden fence. To her left, a brick wall.

Taking a deep breath, she made her choice. Holding her gun in a death grip with her right hand, she bolted towards the dumpster. She sprang upon it like a cat, her feet much steadier than her head. With nary a moment to spare before the officer would spot her, Alyx leapt out to the fence. The wood was damp under her hand, and as she planted her feet on the boards, the entire thing collapsed beneath her.

She fell, painfully, with a _whumph_ of escaping air. Her eyes pricked with tears and she felt the cold grip of fear overtake her. Stunned, she looked ahead, barely able to see past the watering of her eyes. The alleyway continued here, around the corner of an abandoned warehouse. Past the sound of creaking, snapping wood, she thought she could hear the gravelly voice of the officer.

Alyx scrambled to her feet, gasping erratically as she tried to catch her breath. Her feet were moving before she could piece together another route, pealing around the corner of the warehouse as if Breen himself were on her heels.

She stopped around the corner of the warehouse, facing an empty street and a field beyond. Leaning over her knees, she wheezed.

A tickle was forming in her nose. Inwardly, she cursed the dust but before she could stop herself, she sneezed.

"Found you."

Something cold and hard was at her neck. Alyx hissed.

"Goddamnit, Barney. I almost had it this time!"

Barney's chocolate eyes swam with mirth and he laughed. "Well, try not to sneeze when you're running away from Civil Protection!"

Alyx gave him a tired glare. "Could you point that thing somewhere else?" She glanced to the gun.

"It's not even loaded. It doesn't even work. See, it's taped together."

With a groan, the eighteen-year-old girl slid down the wall of the warehouse until she was sitting on her rump, leaning her arms over her knees. "Am I getting better, at least?"

Barney sat down next to her, giving her a glance before looking around ahead of them. "I think you are, kiddo. Although, really, you should look before you leap. I almost thought you'd broken something falling on that fence over there."

Alyx's soft laugh was quickly drowned out with a cough.

"You have a cold?"

"Something. It doesn't matter. Let's go again."

Ten minutes later, they were darting through the abandoned mill again, a game of cat-and-mouse they'd practiced at since Alyx was twelve. In a few more years, he would never be able to catch her.

* * *

**026. Court**

Alyx leaned her arms against the wooden board, raising her pistol with steady hands. She gazed through the sight for a small moment, then fired. The modified gun reported rapidly and loudly, but the sound was more comforting than irritating. About fifteen seconds later, the magazine was emptied. With a soft sigh that could have been interpreted as disappointment, Alyx rose to her feet.

Twenty meters away, pinned to a terribly pockmarked concrete wall, was a sheet of paper with a circle on it. Shoving her gun in its holster, she crossed the space and took the paper down, examining her aim. Either her gun had to be repaired or she was going blind.

Another sigh, this one definitely disappointed.

On the other side of the firing range, the door squealed open. Glancing back, she saw Gordon in his hoodie sweater and loose jeans. He gave her a little wave.

"Hey," she called, pinning a new sheet of paper up and turning to cross the firing range again.

Gordon shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket and smiled. "Hi, Alyx."

"What brings you down here? I thought you were scouting."

"I'm... I'm done," he murmured in his soft voice. "I was... um, I was wondering... if you were busy."

Alyx stopped at the table where she had fired from earlier, letting a bemused expression cross her face as Gordon suddenly looked away.

"I am kind of busy, Gordon," she said apologetically. "I'm trying to get my gun fixed. It doesn't want to fire straight."

"Oh, uh, okay," he said, turning to leave.

Alyx crossed the space between them before he could reach the door. "Hey... what's wrong?" she asked, placing a hand on his lower arm.

"Nothing," he said, offering her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. He hesitated. "Um... wait. Actually..."

He pulled something out of his hoodie pocket and placed it in her hand. It was a brown package wrapped in twine. "Here," he said. Before Alyx could stop him, he slipped out of the door and was gone.

Alyx stood looking at the package for a moment, perplexed. Her bemused expression returning, she went to the table and pulled the twine off the paper.

Inside, she found a semi-automatic pistol, much like her own. Alyx looked closer. It _was_ her gun. A near-exact copy. Where had he found it?

It gleamed brightly in the artificial light, polished clean and in good condition. As she lifted it up to inspect closer, she saw that underneath there was a sheet of folded white paper.

Her face reddened a little as she put the gun down and picked up the paper. When she unfolded it, a small white flower fell out. She immediately recognized Gordon's slanted cursive, written in blue ink.

_Alyx,_

_I don't know when your birthday is, so I don't know if this is early or late. Hope you like it._

_Gordon_

Alyx picked up the little flower and felt her cheeks becoming even hotter. She glanced between it and the letter, her heart drumming in her chest. A smile built up across her face before breaking open, unable to remember how long it had been since she'd felt such exhilarating happiness. Leaving her old gun behind, she dashed out of the firing range.

She couldn't wait to learn when _his_ birthday was.

* * *

**027. Dark**

The noise was horrendous, and he could see nothing. It was suffocating and terrifying, roaring and snarling all around him, closing in on every side. Gordon had passed being panicked a while ago, and now was just an automation, jerkily running his hands around beneath him for the flare he had dropped. Somewhere he could hear Alyx yelling. Her voice cut through the torrent of howls like a clear light cutting through still water.

Where was it? God, where was it? It was just in his hand a second ago, and he'd fumbled for an instant with his pistol and dropped it. As it slipped from his hands he could have sworn he felt his heart stop beating. As he searched, his flashlight died and then he was sure that he was dead.

Something collided with his arm, and he felt knives draw into his skin. The pain was sharp, but it dragged him to reality, and he took his crowbar and struck out blindly. It hit something and he swung again, and again, until he could no longer feel the heat of the creature before him and heard it collapse to the floor.

Find it. Find it. Gordon was searching again, hollering for Alyx to cover him. She was just as blind as he was.

His hand closed around something small and cylindrical and Gordon thought he would die. Gasping, he clutched it tightly in both hands and snapped it.

Light. Sharp, orange light like a sodium lamp, nearly blinding him in its intensity. Gordon stood quickly, holding the flare out in one hand and his pistol in the other.

God, they were everywhere. Shuffling and snarling, and the noise escalated as they saw his light.

"Here," he barked, and they were drawn to him.

Alyx fired with an accuracy he only wished to have. She sidled close to him as they made their way to the elevator. Hopefully by the time the flare died, the battery on his flashlight would have recharged.

* * *

**028. Succeed**

Gordon slammed his foot onto the accelerator of his Charger, almost grinning with the power that the engine gave. The yellow beast leapt forward like a possessed thing, tearing through dirt and grass. Gordon could hear his pursuer behind him, gaining. His sure hands twisted the wheel and his feet let off the pedal so smoothly when he changed gears, it was like he was born for this.

The Charger slid around the corner and onto the road like a snake, only gaining speed as it went. It slipped through the trees and between rocks, tires kicking up the loam.

Ahead, he could see the guard towers of White Forest. He gunned it.

It didn't seem like the Charger could have gone any faster, but it did.

Gordon rocketed up the slope, turned the car slightly, and slid to a stop in front of the fence.

He climbed out of the car with a grin on his face and only a few leaves in his hair, turning to look back the way he came.

There was a low _woo woo_, and Dog came bounding up the road. He slowed a bit as he got closer, then stopped with a somersault in front of the physicist.

"Good boy," Gordon said, humor in his voice. "But I beat you this time."

* * *

**029. Truth**

In all honesty, Gordon wasn't too surprised that the mine cart he'd fallen into began to move. When he picked himself up he realized that he was stuck _inside_ the damn thing, metal bars holding him in like a rat in a trap. By the time this information dawned, however, the cart was picking up speed, rocketing down an incline toward a mine shaft.

Gordon clung to the Gravity Gun as the movement made his whole body vibrate, figuring the cart would land and stop on that very sturdy-looking series of wood planks that sat a few meters down into the mine shaft.

Of course, they broke like particleboard and the damn cart kept going down.

And down.

His stomach shot up to his throat as he fell, weightless, all the way to what he felt should have been the very core of the earth. Before he hit what looked to be solid ground, he heard splashing, and before he could put the information together in his mind he was in the water.

It was _freezing._ Gordon plunged, hoping that the cart would not drag him down. It was difficult to see in the murky water, but he kicked instinctively, clutching the Gravity Gun with one hand and paddling wildly with the other.

When he broke the surface, he cast his eyes around wildly. It didn't feel like he'd broken anything. That was a good sign. He still had the Gravity Gun and could feel his shotgun still strapped to his back.

Gordon blinked through the water droplets on his glasses and let out a shivering breath.

That could have been a _lot_ worse.

Ahead of him, he could see a rickety ladder and pushed for it. He was half expecting it to crumble and collapse while he scaled it, which would have matched up with all of the other _fantastic_ luck he'd been given so far in these damn mines.

Gordon ignored these thoughts and kept climbing, feeling his arms and legs burning with exertion. About halfway up, he heard an explosion and scrabbled to press himself closer to the wall as another cart came sailing over the edge. It hadn't come close to hitting him, but the fear was there all the same. After it hit the water with a resounding splash, Gordon took a deep breath and continued up.

When he was a few rungs from the top, the Vortigaunt's face appeared from the lip, stopping about an inch away from his own nose.

Gordon couldn't quite contain his shock and yelped, nearly dropping the Gravity Gun as his reflexes jerked him backwards.

"Ah," the Vortigaunt was speaking, while Gordon was trying not to let his heart explode, "no pit would be complete without a Freeman climbing _out_ of it."

Hilarious.

Gordon suppressed a shudder as he picked himself up over the lip of the pit.

Vortigaunts scared the crap out of him.

* * *

**030. Lies**

The hopper mine had been cleverly placed. It was stuck around the corner of an alley, with a trash can and a recycle bin partially covering it. Gordon had been leading his Resistance squad at a break-neck speed, and he came around the wall without even thinking. The shrill beeping of warning was the shriek of a falling guillotine.

It exploded, scattering them all into different directions. Gordon ended up tumbling into one wall, wind knocked from his lungs. He heard screaming and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will it away.

One of the members of his squad had taken most of the blast and now lay twisting facedown on the concrete. Gordon turned his head and saw him, saw the blood splattered all over like a child's finger painting. He set his shotgun on the ground and crawled to the young man, whose screaming had fallen into high-pitched, quieter keening.

The other, uninjured members of the squad shied back, terror etched on their faces.

Gordon gently turned the young man over, immediately wishing that he hadn't done so. There was so much blood. Parts in places where they shouldn't have been. He blinked slowly.

The young man looked up at him. "Doc... hey, Doc. Am I gonna be okay?"

Gordon forced a smile onto his face. "Yeah. Yeah, you're going to be fine."

A shuddering breath of blood, splattered on his face. The squad member returned the smile weakly, eyes growing distant. "Oh... okay..." A final, rattling cough. Silence.

Gordon reached over sluggishly and closed the young man's eyes. He hadn't even known the kid's name, for God's sake. A few moments passed where Gordon attempted to stave off his racing thoughts. Above all of them came repeatedly: _I can't do this._ Then, impossibly, he reached over and plucked his shotgun from the ground, climbing back to his feet.

He could see the steel edge of the Citadel peeking above the alleyway.

Turning his head back to his squad, he cocked the shotgun. "Let's go."

* * *

_(A/N: My namesake actually comes into play in one of these. (It's the song that plays when you're fighting for the elevator in Episode One.) I've been working on some (read: a huge) fic for L4D2, which totally took me by surprise, and what I thought would be a simple few pages of zombie apocalypse drabbling soon became something a lot... more involved. If you're interested, I'll likely be posting it pretty soon here. As always, thanks for reading.)_


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